San Diego writer Tomi Adeyemi’s debut novel, “Children of Blood and Bone,” which comes out this week, is the first part of a fantasy trilogy that sold for seven figures, one of the largest Young Adult book deals in history.

The story is drawn from African history and mythology, but is full of modern-day themes about socioeconomic oppression and police brutality.

Adeyemi took her inspiration from seeing illustrations of African gods and goddesses in a gift shop in Brazil. Another photo, of a black girl with luminescent green hair, got her wondering, “What if?”

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Tomi Adeyemi is a Nigerian-American writer who grew up outside Chicago, went to Harvard and now lives in San Diego. Her debut novel, “Children of Blood and Bone,” is the first part of a fantasy trilogy that sold for seven figures, one of the largest Young Adult book deals in history.

Drawing on African history and mythology, it tells the story of a magical world being wiped out by a ruthless king. One girl, descended from the maji and aided by a rogue princess, rises up against oppression and brutality — themes that resonate in today’s culture.

Adeyemi, 24, will be at Mysterious Galaxy in Clairemont on Monday at 7 p.m. This is a ticketed event.

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

A: I think I’ve known my entire life but I lied to myself about it because it’s scary to say, “I want to be a writer.” Whenever you know what you really want to do, it’s scary to put that out in the world because then if you’re not going for it you’re miserable, and if you go for it and you don’t get it you’re miserable, so it just seems safer to lie to yourself.

That’s what I did up until age 22, and I couldn’t lie to myself any more. I was in L.A. at the time, working at a production studio. I got off around 6 and decided to start revising the book I was working on at the time. I’d put in an hour or two and let the traffic die down and go home. But soon I became very obsessive and it was my second job. I would work from 6 to 10, even midnight sometimes.

I was trying so hard to get it published. It didn’t go anywhere, but it taught me everything I needed to know for “Children of Blood and Bone.” And it made me realize that I wasn’t working so hard because I wanted to complete a bucket-list item and publish one book in my life. I was working so hard because I wanted to do what I was doing from 6 to midnight all the time.

Q: You said on your website you want to tell stories about people who are different. Why?

A: The first story I remember writing I was 6 or 7. In almost every one I wrote until I was 18, all of my protagonists were white or bi-racial. Those were the only people I thought could be in books. They were the only people I saw in books, the only people I saw on television, the only people I saw in movies. Somehow I internalized the message that I couldn’t be in a book. You have this nerdy kid just writing stories alone in her room and I can’t even write people who look like me because of what’s happening in the world.

I realized at 18 how messed-up that was and what that said about me and my self-esteem — how I viewed myself, and how uncomfortable I was in my own skin. I knew I had to make a really dramatic change.

I don’t think people realize how constant the noise is. If I’m on the Internet, there’s no way for me to go one day without seeing something that is completely dehumanizing to or about black people. If we want to help the youth avoid going through all the BS we went through, we have to elevate and amplify stories like “Black Panther” and “Children of Blood and Bone” because it’s giving them the chance to see themselves as beautiful and powerful and intelligent.

Q: Important to see themselves as sacred, too, which is how some are portrayed in your book.

A: Yes. That’s a huge part, too. People sometimes ask me what the inspiration was for the book, and it’s kind of a conglomeration of all these different life experiences, but if we just look at the creative inspirations, the first would be the Orisha themselves because when I saw them, I was floored.

I was in a gift shop (in Brazil, on a fellowship). It wasn’t a museum. It was these illustrations of nine what looked to me like African gods and goddesses and it rocked my entire world. I just had to do something with it. You don’t realize what you are missing until you see it. I can’t begin to tell you how common it is for me to see white Jesus or white Zeus, or a host of gods and goddesses who are all white. So to see a black-skinned, Afro-wearing goddess – it was like, “Oh, we’re here. I’m doing something with his.” I didn’t know what, but I knew.

The sacred part is huge. Most people have never seen a black person depicted in a sacred light.

Q: Why did you want to do the novel as a Young Adult book?

A: I only read Young Adult books. I have always only read Young Adult books because they pull you into a world and they take over. I think it’s so funny when I get asked that. What else is there?

My story isn’t really different if I was writing for teens or adults. When I’m editing it down because it’s YA, it’s doing things like making sure consent (in a sexual situation) is very clearly shown. Everything is an example. It doesn’t mean everything is a good example. Some things are in there because they are bad examples. But it means I think about everything in the book as, “If this is a lesson, what lesson am I trying to say? Is it right?” If it’s not, then it gets edited.

I think the other thing is, nobody will love you like a Young Adult reader. That makes it so rewarding because not only am I telling a story I want to write and I’m telling it for an audience who will love it as much as I do, I’m also getting to teach and shape – I don’t want to sound too dramatic – the future.

If you look at a book like “The Hate U Give,” which has spent 50 weeks on the best seller list, and most of those weeks it’s been number one, it’s a book about the harsh reality of police brutality. If you think 5,000 to 6,000 teenagers every week are reading this book and learning from it, learning not to believe everything they see on the news, and learning to humanize and empathize and fight for what’s right – there’s really no other force like it.

Q: How did the idea for your book take hold?

A: The first part was discovering the Orisha. I knew there was a story world there but I didn’t know what it would be. And then about eight months later, I saw this picture of a black girl with luminescent green hair and it was so beautiful and magical. I had never seen anything like it. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It was the first time I saw a picture of a character and wondered, “Who is she? What does a day in her life look like?”

I was talking to my boyfriend on the phone that night and I said, “What if she was this fisherman’s daughter and she had to go to a market to trade something, and while she was there a girl who was a princess came up to her and said, ‘You have to get me out of here’? Is that cool or interesting?”

And he said, “It is interesting.” And I said, “OK, I’ll work with that.” It really was like an explosion. I never had a story experience like that before.

Q: What themes were important for you to explore?

A: Definitely police brutality and oppression. People hear a phrase like “Black Lives Matter” and they will find a way to find fault with it. Really all “Black Lives Matter” is saying is, “Stop killing us.” That’s where it came from. It came from being repeatedly slaughtered with no cause and no justice.

Somehow people will take a phrase like that and twist it. “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” and that is not actually what this is even about.

For me, it was important to take that very simple message and make it black and white. Every single obstacle, every point of conflict, every moment of violence in the book is tied to something that black people are facing today as we speak or faced as recently as 30 years ago in this country.

People will see this and they’ll say, “This is so wrong, this is so bad” and I’ll say, “Cool, I’m glad you feel that way. Now let’s transfer those feelings to what happens to real people in the real world.”

Another thing that is quieter and that is not often talked about and just as serious is the emotional trauma that comes with living in a time period like this. When I’m trying to illustrate this to people, I describe how for basically all of 2017, every time I got behind the wheel of my car I feared for my life.

It didn’t matter if I was just running an errand or going to a doctor’s appointment. I couldn’t turn my key in the ignition without saying, “I might die today. I might be stopped by a police officer and die.” That’s real. It’s not exaggerated. We’ve seen the footage.